Cathy and I love to decorate for Christmas. There are many reasons for this, but the primary one is to celebrate the birthday of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
Obviously, the reason Christmas exists in the first place is to celebrate the birth of Jesus. However, for many, this fact is either forgotten, or maybe not even known. (If you’d like to know more about the true meaning of Christmas, see this page). Between the shopping and gift-giving frenzy, Santa Claus, the Grinch, and all the other traditions of Christmas, sometimes the message of Jesus gets lost in the holiday that’s supposed to celebrate His birth.
A Christmas Enthusiast’s Prayer
Lord, as I untangle strings of Christmas lights, help me to remember that I do this first to honor You. Never let me get so prideful of my display that I fail to see the wonders in the eyes of a child or the joy on the faces of those who are still children at heart. Never let me forget that my total effort is to help people know You, make Christmas memories, bring cheer and to slow down the pace of a hectic season if only for a moment. And Lord, someday when I meet you face to face, may I hear you say: “When you made My people smile, you made Me smile.”
It may have been my Dad who inspired me to use Christmas lights as a Christian witness. Growing up, we lived across the street from our church, which had an outdoor nativity scene. In decorating the house, his philosophy was “no Santa Claus”. The reason was that he didn’t want the Christian nativity scene on one side of the street, and the “secular scene” on the other side, taking away from the Nativity.. I’ve adopted the philosophy of keeping the true meaning of Christmas in our displays ever since. We’re definitely not afraid to say “Merry Christmas” here! You’ll find the traditional candy canes, wreaths, colored lights, trees, stars, and snowflakes, but you’ll also find our Peanuts Nativity Pageant, where Linus reads from the gospel of Luke, as he does in the much-loved Charlie Brown Christmas TV special.
Now don’t get me wrong, we don’t have anything against Santa Claus or those other traditions, nor do we have anything against people who decorate with a Santa theme or whatever else. And if you have other religious traditions, or just “aren’t a religious person”, we think you’ll still love our display. We just simply feel that we can use our display to help others remember Jesus during the Christmas season, as we try to do for ourselves. We’re not the type to preach at you when you don’t want to hear, although we’re certainly willing to talk about our faith. And I don’t expect anyone will become a Christian through the simple fact that they looked at our display. But if we can help at least one person to think about Jesus and the meaning of Christmas this season who otherwise wouldn’t have, then the display was well worth the effort. As a nice side benefit, it’s pretty to look at, too!
As a matter of fact, we do have a couple Santa Claus figures in our
display, but one of ours just happens to be kneeling down by the manger of Baby Jesus!
May God bless you this Christmas season and throughout the year!
-Tim & Cathy Fischer